Looking for anyone interested in helping do so. I am putting together material now, based on what I am reading, as well as my own research on the subject. I believe I should start with:

A background of the founder of Islam, including what his followers and others say about him, as well as any quotes I can find.*
The truth about ‘peaceful Muslims’ and the misunderstanding the average individual has about *
The true purpose of Islam and the methods of terror used to spread their influence and terror*

I can produce lots of material just from those three topics, which could span many articles. As I go along I am sure more substance will be brought to mind. I am currently a pretty avid internet marketer so I am aware of how to get things seen on the internet.

I am inputting this all into a blog I just registered, and I will make the address available when it has at least some content. It is registered on wordpress.com instead of it’s own domain due to the fact wordpress syndicates the content of their hosted blogs throughout their site and exposure is attained rather quickly in comparison to fresh domains. I could use anything anybody is interested in contributing, commentary, videos, guest authoring, whether it be a 1 time thing, periodically, or on a regular basis. I am looking to tackle this pretty hard, and push it into a lot of faces.

If you have any interest at all let me know, respond to this post or even e-mail me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Have you seen the short movie “Obsession, Radical Islam’s war against the west”? I’m actually writing you now from Saudi Arabia and was raised a Muslim and this movie actually is very close to the what is going on in most religious circles.

TruthHathCome - 20 November 2008 04:05 PM

The true purpose of Islam and the methods of terror used to spread their influence and terror*

I would like you when undertaking this endeavor of yours to put into consideration that religions begin basically out of people’s need for it. Their need to explain the world and it’s purpose, their need to explain weird phenomenons that and why they happen, and of course the need of the few to control the rest. I think all religions begin in the same way. The difference between Christianity and Islam is that the first was undermined early with the rise of rationalism. Sooner or later Islam will be pressured in the same way.

If you treat Islam as a dogma with a hidden agenda or as having a conspiracy theory between the lines of the Quran, in my opinion, you would be shooting your self in the foot, and just become another bias critic. I believe you need to find the ‘natural’ reasons of why a culture of hatred can arise. It might be related more to human nature than to Islam.

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“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men-above all for those upon whose smiles and well being, our own happiness depends. ”

That my friend, is another topic. Please believe me that I have no hidden agenda. There is a very evident truth about the nation of Islam, that is expressed in it’s doctrines, the Quran, as well as the Hadith. There is also a very evident truth about the founder, that is ignored in the eyes of the public and the preponderance of those who follow the faith, which is expressed by his close constituents. My friend, I am doing nothing but looking to present facts. The truth. In this particular case I am not doing a psychoanalysis of mankind and our many short-comings, but presenting facts about a particular doctrine. Islam has no hidden dogma, as everything is put forth in the teachings of its founders and it’s texts. The fact is however, that there are certain elements of the doctrine, which are deadly to society, and mankind in general.

What I am doing is surpassing the bias, overlooking the blame, and stating the fact. If a man steals from a store, and is caught, he is caught, and he is charged with a theft. What you are implying is, that if a man steals from a store, we need to sit him down, and find out why he stole, why people steal and general, as well as what the store did to provoke him to steal. That is an analogy, but that is the basic understanding I am getting from you, unless I am incorrect. That can be done, but that is something deeper, and set for another time, believe me. In the mean time there is a problem, it should be identified, and recognized as a problem. The thief has been caught. We are now charging the thief with theft. Why? To prevent theft. In the future we can go into the analytics of why he chose to steal, and what the store did to provoke him to steal, maybe we will cure all mankind of the urge to steal, but at the moment, we are charging this individual with theft, and preventing any of his future thefts. Islam has no alibi, no reason to cry, “Unfair.” The Qur’an condemns all non-Muslims - Christians and Jews as well as those who worship many gods and no gods. It is an equal opportunity hater. Its attitude toward unbelieving infidels is overwhelmingly hostile. I would love to debate with you personally on the matter, now, and when I release the material, if you would like. You can e-mail me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), my friend.

TruthHathCome, let me warn you that the truth of Islam is so vast a topic as to require an entire lifetime of scholarship and, at the very least, an understanding of the classical Arabic language in which the Quran is written. To try to boil this social phenomenon down to simple statements is an exercise in absurdity. Islam embraces a billion people and has been around for 1400 years. The amount of literature that it has generated could not be read by one person in a lifetime.

Think in terms of the Christian church. What is the “truth” of Christianity? Christians interpret their religion in a multitude of ways. Many Christians hold beliefs that contradict the beliefs of other Christians—and indeed, many Christians hold beliefs that contradict their OWN beliefs! In the 2,000 years of its existence, Christianity has been embraced by perhaps two billion people and has generated more literature than could be read by one person in a lifetime. How could you possibly establish “the truth of Christianity”?

As one who spent many years studying Arabic (and therefore getting a lot of exposure to the Quran) I can tell you that you don’t have to look any further than the Quran itself for all the incriminating evidence of what is truly a mind-trap of fear and irrational belief which promotes an ethno-centric view of intolerance and “God-justified” violence.

Remember, though, that there are many followers of Islam (probably the majority, just like Mormons!) who are really nice people. Islam (which I agree lends itself to this purpose particularly well) is only a tool put to bad purposes. Good people are good regardless of what they believe, and angry young men raised to hate the West would be that way regardless of how seriously they take the dogma of Islam.

The warning bells I hear going off reading your post though, is that you are gathering your research to come to a conclusion you have already made. This is one of the hallmarks of pseudoscience, even if it is pseudo-social-science in this case.

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J.K. Fausnight

When I was 15 years old, I could no longer reconcile religion with reality, and I knew one of them would have to go. It still amazes me how many people make the other choice.

The ‘very evident truth’ about islam, is that it is every much as fractured as christianity. There is no one islam, just as there is no ONE christianity or judaism, or any other religion or non-religion for that matter. Atheist are just as fractured in their beliefs( or lack thereof), as the religious as evidenced by the participants on this board!

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Church; where sheep congregate to worship a zombie on a stick that turns into a cracker on Sundays…

Chris, you have very valid points. But the truth is, the truth lies at the source. The truth about Christianity is…in the “New Testament” of the bible. The truth about Islam is in the Qu’ran. Those are the written sources that are the foundations of those doctrines. Any other material that expanded on the original texts is irrelevant, no matter how coherent it is with the original texts. Children don’t justify the parents, parents spawn the children, and the children are justified by the parents. Of course there are vast amounts of literature about a doctrine, but that doctrine is not justified based upon those literatures. Why? Those literatures did not spawn the doctrine. They are not the foundation of the doctrine, the doctrine is the foundation of them.

Asanta, There is only one true Islam. The Qu’ran is the rock of that Islam sits on. Everything else is a carbon copy, or knock off. The same principle applies to Michael Jackson impersonators, as well as fake Gucci and Louis Vuitton Bags.

Fausinator, let me clarify that I love all people. Envious, lying, lazy, disgusting, evil, violent, contradictory, hypocritical, beautiful, truthful, powerful-minded, and righteous as any of us may be, we are all people. None of us is fit to judge or conclude anything about another. I have high-school friends, current friends, constituents of different types, and many other individuals I admire—who are muslim. Up until recently I thought the only difference between Muslim and Christianity was that they believe in a prophet, and not the Messiah. Then I started to read the text and sirens went off like “Whoa”.

Please understand that this is not an attack on any human beings. This is simple identification of a set of ideals that are deadly. The ideals that sent two planes into two large buildings causing thousands of people to choose between burning, or jumping hundreds of feet, to their death. I can go on with the murders, they date back centuries.

I quote a fellow study:

“The vast preponderance of today’s Muslims do not know their prophet or their religion very well. Theirs is a life of ignorance, despair, tyranny, and mind- numbing ritual. They are kept in the dark, purposely deceived, for the benefit of cleric and king. And there is no incentive for them to learn. Exposed to the truth, they would reject Islam, a decision that could cost them their lives. The Qur’an itself confirms this startling reality. In the 5th surah, the final revelation chronologically, Allah ordered Muslims “not to question the Qur’an,” for those who did, he said, “discarded their religion.” In that light, we should feel good about freeing Muslims from the oppressiveness of Islam. For by freeing them we will free ourselves from the scourge of Islamic terror.”

The issue here is not to compare it to other doctrines. The issue is not to condemn or judge the individuals that follow the doctrine. The issue here is to recognize the poignant evil of it, and hopefully sway at least one individual from it, or many. If one individual will sway, that may cause another, and before you know it the domino effect. The purpose is to save at least one life from being taken “for Allah”. The purpose is to keep one man, woman, or child from being murdered no matter their race or religion. One American, European, or Israeli soldier from being killed.

For the good of mankind.

Anyway, thank all of you guys for your responses. You really gave me more insight and forced me to learn and consider more. Respond to this discussion, we’ll talk more or you can email me anytime: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Asanta, There is only one true Islam. The Qu’ran is the rock of that Islam sits on. Everything else is a carbon copy, or knock off. The same principle applies to Michael Jackson impersonators, as well as fake Gucci and Louis Vuitton Bags.

Your premise leads to a number of logical fallacies. The first one I come up with is a ‘biased sample’ fallacy:
1. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is biased or prejudiced in some manner. It has the following form:

1. Sample S, which is biased, is taken from population P.
2. Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

1. X% of all observed A’s are B’‘s.
2. Therefore X% of all A’s are Bs.

People who practice the various forms of islam based on the qu’ran, just as those who practice the various forms of christianity based on the bible and judaism based on the torah, will all tell you that theirs is the one true form of ‘X’.

The comparison of islam with Michael Jackson impersonators is a straw man argument. It is in no way relative to my initial observation and is only your personal opinion. It would be more relative to compare the singer Michael Jackson to all of the other men (and women) named Michael Jackson. They are all true Michael Jacksons, although they are not all rich and famously bizarre singers…..

I wish some of the philosophy experts would weigh in here, because I sure they could list a multitude of problems with your hypothesis.

Well, I suppose that’s true if you wish to engage in a theological analysis of the Quran itself. However, if you wish to understand Islam as it is practiced today by a billion people, then you must indeed consider all the commentaries of the intervening centuries, as well as the cultural factors that each group of Muslims brought to the party. If there were only a single truth about Islam, then there would be no doctrinal differences inside Islam. The fact that there are many major doctrinal differences demonstrates that in fact the matter is nowhere near as simple as you seem to think it is.

The purpose is to save at least one life from being taken “for Allah”.

Actually, more lives have been taken for Jesus than for Allah.

One American, European, or Israeli soldier from being killed.

Many, many more Iraqis have died in Iraq than Americans Many more Palestinians have been killed by Israelis than Israelis have been killed by Palestinians. Many more Afghanis have been killed by Americans and Europeans than Americans and Europeans have been killed by Afghanis.

Your premise leads to a number of logical fallacies. The first one I come up with is a ‘biased sample’ fallacy:
1. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is biased or prejudiced in some manner. It has the following form:
1. Sample S, which is biased, is taken from population P.
2. Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

1. X% of all observed A’s are B’’s.
2. Therefore X% of all A’s are Bs.

First, a statistical generalization is a generalization that attributes a property to some proportion of the target populations. Basically taking a segment of the population and making a generalization on the entire population. A is the population in your equation above, and B is the generalization. If you are to say X is one form or way of understanding Islam, and A is the combination of all forms of Islam, and B is what I am concluding to be the true form of Islam, than you have misunderstood the message I delivered in those statements. You say:

People who practice the various forms of islam based on the qu’ran, just as those who practice the various forms of christianity based on the bible and judaism based on the torah, will all tell you that theirs is the one true form of ‘X’.

I am not making claims of what the true form of islam is based on groups of people who practice it. I am telling you, the true form of islam is what the qu’ran told me, and that everything else is a distortion.

The Michael Jackson analogy is not straw man at all, nor is it my personal opinion. The truth of the matter is, 1.) if you’re not totally down for what’s in that Qu’ran, how can you say that you follow Islam? 2.) Where else is Islam derived from? Your personal opinions of what it should be? A vast amount of personal opinions of what it should be?

Replace 1 and 2:
1.) If you’re not the young African American kid from Gary, Indiana, how can you say you’re michael jackson?
2.) Where else is Michael Jackson from?

Either way, the answers to #1 and #2 are:
1.) You can’t.
2.) Nowhere. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
I can expand on what is above, but it is clouding the message I am trying to get across. The truth is, I haven’t even scratched the surface required to the scratch the surface. It would be your best bet to allow me to make at least a few claims, that way you can at least attempt to debate the facts that I have gathered. This would give you the ability to discredit the entire argument.

Also, Chris, I would like to use my answer to Asanta for your first claim, if you do not understand, please let me know, I will elaborate. I do not understand your points in your last two claims. Are you saying that because more lives were taken for Jesus, all of the lives that have and will be taken “for allah” are justified? Is that to be said for your last claim as well? Two wrongs make a right?

The facts still remain.

A large portion of what the qu’ran instructs and represents is evil and adverse to mankind.
The founder of islam, the false prophet muhammad was a murderer, rapist, pirate, and by and large, evil and adverse to mankind.
The highest authority on the subject matter of islam, is a terrorist.

Dispute those facts. Make them fiction and discredit the entire argument. That would leave me to discontinue any research, and stop me from from going down this road, period.

Here is what I will do to prove these facts:

I will quote from nearly every surah in the qu’ran.
I will put verses into the context of Muhammad’s life, and quote from the Sunnah, recorded by bukhari, Muslim, Ishaq, and Tabari, which are very trusted sources.

I can match you verse for verse biblical stories of rape, pillage and murder. What on earth does that prove, or have to do with anything. You can’t paint the religion with one broad brushed stroke.In christianity there are the literalistic and the figurative followers. They would be unhappy if you referred to their religion as the false one. Islam and Judaism have the same separations. Please tell everyone what makes you qualified to tell people which one is real.

Michael Jackson is an extremely common name, and unless you add further qualifiers to separate one from the rest, they are still all Michael Jacksons albeit not the one you are looking for. On the other hand you would be hard pressed to find another Moon Unit Zappa!

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Church; where sheep congregate to worship a zombie on a stick that turns into a cracker on Sundays…

Sorry THC (hmmm, an abbreviation for tetrahydrocannabinol . ) but your posts indicate that you are as much of a fundamentalist and “true believer” in your own faith, in this case anti-Islam, as any religious fundamentalist is. Most religions cover enough disparate ideas that a great deal of evil can be justified within their writings. While I would far prefer that both Islam and Christianity and all their sub-denominations would disappear, your preoccupation with Islam and its evils doesn’t really fit the rational discussion format we strive for in this forum.

Ah Asanta, I forgot to mention that we should continue this tomorrow. It is 1 A.M. here almost. I don’t know what location you are posting from. Since I had to check my e-mail 1 more time, I will go this 1 more go around with you.

I see you are not interested in disputing the facts I set out. Anyway, you are still missing the point. You want to match me biblical verses when I made no mention of the bible. Don’t assume that I am here trying to make converts. Don’t forget about the original post I made to start this topic. You also choose to neglect the fact that I am not after the followers, but what they follow. The majority of Muslims I know, are the most disciplined, respectful, and pleasant individuals. Even more so than Christians. That does not take away from what is written in that Qu’ran, which is the origin of the faith. What makes me qualified to tell, is what was told to me, by the Qu’ran. Work on understanding what truth is. It is not another man’s version, or a majority vote. I will gladly choose your or the next man’s unhappiness over the death anyone.

It has been a pleasure, I will continue this discussion with you all tomorrow.

My quest to understand Islam began on the morning of September 11th 2001. I wanted to know why Muslim militants were killing us. So I went off to Ground Zero for Islamic terror - Israel. The West Bank is home to more suicide bombers per capita than anywhere else on earth. I arranged to meet with the terrorists themselves. I asked members of al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and Hamas why they were killing us. They said, “Islam. We are following Muhammad’s orders.”

Returning to the beginning of this thread, let me add some of the practical observations I’ve had over the years in Muslim countries which is actually my whole life:

Attacking the faith will only make the faithful stronger in their convictions, even the moderates: Religious people want to believe, it makes them happy, it makes them secure. What’s worse is that it is part of their identity, and when attacking a part of the identity, that little part will grow to overshadow other parts of the identity.

Example; A person in the middle east might have the following components in his identity; an Arab, a person from the respectable X tribe,a Muslim, a Syrian, an engineer. If this person feels that Islam is being attacked, most probably he will start praying, even if he hasn’t before! I’m totally serious, Islam will become his Identity. There was little Hijab in the middle east countries 30 years ago. My mom used to wear little short skirts all the time but with the assault on Palestinian & Iraqi land, people felt that there was an aggression on Muslim countries & Islam. Now she’s pressured by all her sisters and neighbors to wear the Hijab like them. It’s so sad. That is my theory behind the rise of fundamentalism & militant Islam. “Causality”

The purpose of this website of yours, in my opinion, will not achieve it’s objective. I think it might even make the problem worse. It will make anti-Muslims more anti and faithful Muslims more faithful.

So how to tackle the problem of Islam, which is by the way, the same way to tackle all religions and superstition?

The answer is simply through the advancement of Science and Reason.

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“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men-above all for those upon whose smiles and well being, our own happiness depends. ”

THC, I now appreciate that you’re not interested in a comparative analysis of Islam and Christianity. Your case is strictly absolutist in nature: you are examining Islam in isolation. OK, that’s fair, and it renders my earlier points irrelevant.

However, there’s still a problem with your reasoning. On the one hand, your motivation to explore this issue lies in the hope that you can reduce the amount of human suffering in the world. That’s good. On the other hand, you propose to do so by examining the Quran in isolation, with no regard for its modern interpretation, the many differing interpretations offered by different groups, and the cultural context of different Islamic societies. That won’t work. The causes of Islamic terrorism are manifold, and the Quran is only a single, and rather small contributor. Focusing exclusively on the Quran to understand modern Islamic terrorism is rather like researching the Bible to understand the Holocaust.